I balance it more or less equally. Lunch is generally at the office cafeteria, so I won't count that. Weekend lunches are kitchen experiments, so think of it

I balance it more or less equally. Lunch is generally at the office cafeteria, so I won't count that. Weekend lunches are kitchen experiments, so think of it as lab work and don't count it either. Breakfast is typically cereal, or toast and marmalade, but on weekends I might do scrambled eggs, or pancakes and if my girlfriend's around, we might do something like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poha_%28rice%29>Poha</a&#62 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poha_%28rice%29>Poha</a...; or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upma>Upma</a&#62 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upma>Upma</a> or something else fancy, but it's always at home. Dinner is where the trade-off happens. I'll cook at home one or two days and eat out three days. So what happens with the remaining two days of the week? Leftovers from the two days that I do cook. When I eat out, I end up spending not less than $10 on a meal. If I cook at home, I spend maybe $10 for two and a half meals. Why the difference? From what I can tell, there are several reasons... At home, I cook once and cover several meals. I have no wastage because I refrigerate leftovers and eat them the next day. I decide what I'm gonna cook before I buy the ingredients. Each dish a restaurant makes has to serve one person. They buy the ingredients in advance and hope to break even on what they use. More often than not, then end up with wastage that they must throw away. This is factored into the menu. The restaurant also needs to pay rent for their premises, pay salaries and follow health guidelines. You could factor your house rent into your meals, in which case it should shoot each day's meal up by $30 or more. You could also choose to pay yourself whenever you cook, pushing it up another few dollars, and as far as the health code goes... you decide.